cian should treat severe emotional disorders, he also believed that others could apply “emo-
tional first aid” in less severe disorders. As Reich put it: “Only healthy and right structures
can do the right thing. What made it here was the ability of the mother to give love. The
mother must have contact with the child before anything else can happen.”
Reich distinguished between three kinds of mothers in terms of emotional inter-
ventions: those who easily learned first-aid techniques; those who could but who were afraid
and who needed support; and those who were too sick to learn them.
Here again we perceive the continuity in all Reich’s social efforts. He was most con-
cerned about the second kind of persons—adolescents, mothers, or whoever—who could
reach out and function in a much healthier way ifthey received support. This was the swing
group, so to speak. There were relatively few in the first or healthy group, and the third
required lengthy therapy before they could be useful.
Although Reich’s primary aim for the OIRC was the study of health in the prena-
tal, postnatal, childhood, and adolescent periods, and active intervention, not long-term
treatment, in any acute difficulties, he also had a secondary broad social aim. He assessed the
potential contributions of persons connected with the OIRC. A sociologist could make a
study of legal difficulties and implications regarding the newborn. An orgone therapist who
had formerly been an obstetrician could locate hospitals receptive to more flexible proce-
dures and might also be willing to do home deliveries. An orgonomically oriented internist
could study the existing hospital conditions as they pertained to the newborn. A mother
could observe the oral orgasm in infants and a nursery-school teacher the orgasm reflex in
children.
Reich believed that when children entered the genital phase, they were capable not
only of genital excitation but also of a convulsive discharge of excitation. The excitation did
not reach a sharp peak, followed by a rapid discharge of excitation, as it did in adults; there
was no climax. The rise and fall of excitation was more gradual.
It is interesting—and sad—to note that after some thirty-five years we know little
more about the orgasm reflex in children than what Reich described.
The OIRC functioned actively for only a few years. All in all, Reich studied closely
about twelve mothers and their offspring;in addition, he consulted on about a dozen cases
ofolder children with various problems. At its height an OIRC social worker, Grethe Hoff,
worked half-time for Reich, following the mothers during pregnancy and the mothers and
infants during the first weeks and months of their lives. In addition, several therapists were
very active in consultation.
After early 1952,under the pressure ofother events we shall soon discuss, Reich
spent little time with the OIRC. Like so many of his undertakings, it had a short, vivid life.
Out of it he culled not only important concepts but a number of very specific techniques.
When one reads of Reich’s achievements in summary form, much of what he says seems so
simple and obvious.It is easy to overlook the fact that no one in his time was seeing and
doing what he was seeing and doing.
23 : Psychiatric, Sociological, and Educational Developments: 1940-1950 311